The Vikings Uncovered

The Discovery Of New Worlds

Episode 2SBSJanuary 18, 2017

Dan Snow researches how the Norwegian and British Vikings settled in Iceland and formed their communities. Dan examines how the Vikings expanded first as raiders, then settlers and traders throughout Britain and beyond to Iceland and Greenland, discovering that they were entrepreneurs and inventors. In North America, Dan and Sarah excavate what could be the most westerly Viking settlement ever discovered.

The civilisation of Ancient Egypt was the greatest the world has ever seen, continuing for 3000 years with one religion, one language and one evolving history. Egypt created the world's first empire yet much of what we know about ancient Egyptian culture is pieced together from astonishingly little hard information, and many intriguing mysteries remain. New scientific techniques are now enabling historians to uncover many of these hidden secrets. Behind them lie tales of power and intrigue, love and madness, passion and murder.

The first rumours about a forgotten Pharaoh reached Europe in the middle of the 19th century. Was it Akhanaten? The first evidence was found by the scholar Richard Lepsius. He began documenting the treasures of Egypt's ancient art in 1842. In tomb complexes and temples, his staff copied wall paintings and took casts of bas-reliefs. From Cairo, his journeys took him south. He kept an exhaustive diary about the work of the 'Royal Prussian Expedition' at the stops on their journey-following the Nile further and further upstream. In Middle Egypt, near the town of Asyut, Lepsius made an astonishing discovery. On both banks of the Nile he found traces of a Pharaoh whose name was missing from the traditional lists of kings. His curiosity was aroused - feverishly, he followed what hints the locals could give him.

Cleopatra's story is a great romantic tale we think we all know. A beautiful Egyptian Queen who bewitches the two most powerful Romans of her day, Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. It has tragedy, glamour and passion, all played out on a world stage. But the myth conceals a much more intriguing tale that is as much about power, politics and spin as it is about romance. Cleopatra harboured ambitions to rule a great empire. In partnership with her lover Antony, she fought a cataclysmic battle against Octavian - later Augustus - for the future of the Roman world. Ultimately Cleopatra and Antony lost, and thus her story has always been told through the prism of vicious Roman propaganda. But behind Rome's spin lies a more complex person, rather than being the dangerous femme fatale of legend, she was a highly educated and cultured woman of great charm and fairly plain looking. And rather than being an exotic oriental, she was in fact Greek, a descendent of one of Alexander the Great's generals. Through expert interviews, dramatic reconstruction and location shooting, this film tells her remarkable story.

The civilisation of Ancient Egypt was the greatest the world has ever seen, continuing for 3000 years with one religion, one language and one evolving history. Egypt created the world's first empire yet much of what we know about ancient Egyptian culture is pieced together from astonishingly little hard information, and many intriguing mysteries remain. New scientific techniques are now enabling historians to uncover many of these hidden secrets. Behind them lie tales of power and intrigue, love and madness, passion and murder.

The civilisation of Ancient Egypt was the greatest the world has ever seen, continuing for 3000 years with one religion, one language and one evolving history. Egypt created the world's first empire yet much of what we know about ancient Egyptian culture is pieced together from astonishingly little hard information, and many intriguing mysteries remain. New scientific techniques are now enabling historians to uncover many of these hidden secrets. Behind them lie tales of power and intrigue, love and madness, passion and murder.